Steven Moffat says ‘stop the fuss’ over gay Doctor Who companion

Steven Moffat says everyone should "stop the fuss" over the new companion in ‘Doctor Who’ being gay.

The showrunner in his final year in charge of the BBC One sci-fi show is introducing Bill Potts, played by Pearl Mackie, to the TARDIS and in the first episode of the new series it is revealed that the plucky character is a lesbian.

Moffat was surprised by the attention Pearl’s revelation that her alter ego is openly homosexual garnered and insists it isn’t a big deal in the world of ‘Doctor Who’ as there have been lots of gay characters introduced since it came back to TV screens in 2005, such as bisexual time traveller Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and inter-species lesbian couple Silurian detective Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh) and Jenny Flint (Catrin Stewart).

Speaking at a Q&A to launch Series 10 in London on Tuesday night (04.04.17), he said: "It’s not that rare in ‘Doctor Who’, we had Captain Jack, who marries practically everybody then we had Madame Vastra and Jenny so this is absolutely normal for us. To be absolutely honest Pearl and I and everybody didn’t know it was going to be a big deal. When Pearl did that interview where she happened to mention it we didn’t know there was going to be all that fuss. In a way there kind of shouldn’t be, that’s nonsense. To be clear, we are not expecting any kind of round of applause or a pat on the back for that. That’s the minimal amount of representation you should have on television and the appropriate response should be, ‘What took you so long?’ The fuss stops now, stop the fuss."

Moffat, 55, also believes it’s important to not make such a big deal out of the fact that Bill is gay because any children and young people watching who could be working out their own sexuality should be reassured by programs like ‘Doctor Who’ that’s OK to be homosexual.

He added: "It’s important that we don’t make a fuss about this in a children’s show which talks directly to them. We don’t young children who are boring and normal and happen to fancy their own gender we don’t want to make them feel as though they’re some kind of special case because that’s frightening."

‘Doctor Who’ – also starring Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor and Matt Lucas as Nardole – returns on Saturday April 15 with ‘The Pilot’.